The Deep Review

  Usually, I don't like novellas, they're okay but I never really get the sense of knowing what's going on and who the characters really are, just because you don't have much time to go in-depth into character development (also most of the novellas I read are romance so just keep that in mind), but this book just exceeded all my expectations. 

So the premise is about the Wajinru "people," essentially they are almost like mermaids however they are the descendants of the pregnant African slave women who were thrown overboard by slavers. For most of them, they live fairly idyllic lives in the depths of the ocean; however, the Historian is one who must bear the burden of their people's harsh past and it's only during the Remembering that the rest of the Wajinru remember their past. Our protagonist Yetu is the current Historian who believes that her role as Historian is slowly sapping her of her existence and leaving her as a husk for the Wajinru's past and wants to escape this role. During a Remembering, while the Wajinru is in an almost comatose state, Yetu escapes to the surface, to free herself. 

So probably my favorite thing about this was the amount of culture that Rivers Solomon is able to press into such a small book. They took this tragic aspect of a dark time in our history and twisted into a sort of revisionist magical backstory. Then they give you so much about the Wajinru history, culture, and customs without making it seem too info-dumpy. Honestly, I would love to have an entire book about the history of these people.

My only complaint was that it was hard to keep up with what was going on. Let me preface this by saying that this is not the kind of book that you can passively read, I really recommend reading this either in silence or while listening to instrumental music. When they would start talking about what was going on during the Rememberings, there's no way to distinguish it from the story (no italics or different font) and the pronouns start to change to we. In theory, it makes sense, the Rememberings are done by all the Wajinru and so they are collectively experiencing this moment, but as I was reading I would have to rethink what was actually going on, because at first, it sounds like there are multiple doing this one thing when in reality, it's just one person doing it, with multiple people experiencing it. It can definitely throw you off if you're casually reading it.  

 All in all, I highly recommend this book and I very excited to read some of Solomon's full length novels in the future.